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THE TRUMP DISASTER THE TIMES REPORT talks with David K. Johnson How 'ignorant' Trump's China talks put president in 'weak position' PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpvuqBkiNgs Peter Burgess COMMENTARY Peter Burgess
How 'ignorant' Trump's China talks put president in 'weak position' \| David Cay Johnston Times Radio May 14, 2025 1.42M subscribers ... 216,383 views ... 5.4K likes ✪ Members first on May 14, 2025 The Trump Report 'China has agreed to talk because it's in their interest to do so and they understand perfectly well that Donald is appallingly ignorant.' Trump is in a weak position over trade and his failure to secure peace in Ukraine, warns David Cay Johnston on The Trump Report. Join this channel to get access to perks - / @listentotimesradio 📻 Listen to Times Radio - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio 🗞 Subscribe to The Times https://www.thetimes.co.uk/subscribe/... 📲 Get the free Times Radio app https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio/how-... Transcript 0:00 uh Donald's in a very weak position You know the courts are routinely ruling against him He's had a few wins but overall he's losing in the courts His position that you know um uh anything he does to save the country is lawful is not sitting well with with the courts Uh he's not doing well in his negotiations And his his deal with the UK is a complete non-deal You know he brags about oh we're going to be able to have more Rolls-Royces Rolls-Royce sold less than 2,000 cars in the US last year in a market with 15 16 million sales a year Uh the UK Starmer came over um posed nicely for Donald with pictures and did nothing of any consequence And that's the same thing that's happened with the Chinese Uh the government in Mexico is being very firm because we need Mexican uh uh fruits and vegetables uh much more than uh they need us And Donald's complete ignorance is also on display in all of this And remember he said 'Oh Canada's not a significant trading partner It's our biggest trading 1:02 partner.' Um so I I think that if Putin were to not show up and Donald were to show up that would be a real egg in his [Music] face Hello and welcome to the Trump Reports I'm Louis Sykes Today we're joined by best-selling author and Puliter Prizewinning journalist David K Johnson who has written three books on Donald Trump including his most recent book The Big Cheat Uh David welcome Glad to be with you Louie Well uh I wanted to start with Trump continuing his trip to the Middle East He signed a 142 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia I mean in a way is this not Donald you know Donald the dealmaker doing what he does best well my suspicion is that that deal was already in the works the Saudis buy Americanmade weaponry uh jet fighters electronics etc But Donald will claim credit for anything Um in his first term he boasted that Exon Mobile because of 2:02 him was going to invest $25 billion Well you just had to go to Exon Mobile's disclosures and you realized they had long before he came to the White House announced $2 billion which was ordinary capital investment for that huge company But Donald always claims credit if it's good And if it isn't well that's somebody else's fault And what about this uh donation of a of a of a plane that we're hearing to to Donald Trump and the idea that he might even keep it after he leaves the presidency well the president of the United States may not accept any gift or imalment which means financial gain from a foreign government a king u any foreign entity or for that matter from the states the 50 US states under the constitution unless congress expressly provides permission to do that And this is just Donald Trump flouting the constitution he doesn't understand uh 3:02 flouting the law I mean Donald whom I have covered for 37 years uh doesn't believe the rules apply to him He believes he is special and as early as 2011 I said Donald believes that he alone is competent to be president of the US and he believes he should run the whole country And I was mocked 14 years ago for that Lo and behold what did Donald say a couple of weeks ago in an interview i run the country and the whole world Uh that's how he thinks He doesn't think the rules apply to him And so why wouldn't I take the gift i mean of of course we're going to we're going to take the gift It's never going to be Air Force One You would have to strip that plane down to the skeleton it was in the Boeing factory in Washington State and rebuild it And it would require of course extensive hardening for electromagnetic impulses in case of a nuclear war Uh it ha it would have to be set up for refueling in the air Uh 4:00 and Boeing is building two 747s to replace the current one Uh they're late because they underbid the project and it's costing Boeing a lot of money Uh but it's absurd This is simply a a bribe not yet charged as a crime and maybe never charged as a crime but this is just a bribe by the Qataris for things they want from Donald Trump which include enhancing their own security from other Middle East countries And and I wonder how you judge the optics of of this visit Trump's again in Qatar today I believe and he's brought with him He's flanked by this this this gaggle almost of of tech entrepreneurs who have come with I mean how is this going to be perceived do you think back in the states Trump is going out to make deals for major US uh corporations I suppose that that that could be viewed as a positive light or is there something a bit seedy about them all being there with the president possibly for their own interests oh it's 5:00 incredibly seedy but large numbers of Americans tens of millions of them believe that all truth emanates from Donald Uh the internet is full of pictures of him as a religious figure and I don't mean his pontiful pontificical post recently uh posing him as a God's savior I and of course Donald says I alone can save you Those people aren't going to be affected by anything he does But even a number of conservative Republicans on Capitol Hill are worried about what's going on here because they see their own reelection being endangered by Donald's conduct One of the most troubling things that happened during his stop in Saudi Arabia was that Dr Patrick Seion Shung the brilliant cancer doctor and inventor who owns the Los Angeles Times where I was a reporter for a dozen years long ago um shook the hand of MBS the de facto ruler 6:00 of Saudi Arabia the man who the US government intelligence services say was behind the murder of the journalist Gamal Kamal I'm sorry Jamal Kosoji who was a columnist for the Washington Post To see an American newspaper publisher shake that man's hand is very disturbing It's getting a lot of discussion in the uh private groups of former LA Times people like me Um in the tech people who are with him and uh the LA Times publishers fortune depends on approvals from the federal government of the new drugs and other treatments for cancer he is developing They are all there to make sure that Donald is their friend that they get the approvals they want whether justified or not And this is simply a form of tribute to Trump And Lou let me let me go back on the day Donald Trump was sworn in in 2017 Uh there was live TV coverage of 7:01 him driving to the White House And unlike the Barack Obama's first inauguration where the people were packed curb to building almost nobody was there There were a number of places where there were more security people than uh well-wishers but Trump stopped the presidential limousine on Constitution Avenue Everybody covered this The whole family got out of that car in the follow-up car They took a two-minute turn on the pavement and drove on Only at DC Report the news service I founded did anyone know where he stopped which was in front of the Trump Hotel because the signal he was sending is that if you want favors from me you will first pay tribute And so we saw the Saudis rent out entire floors at the rack rate You know next time you go in a hotel look at the sign on the back door You may have paid $99 but the rack rate could be 500 And um the the uh uh the signal was very clear and Trump took in at a minimum because we haven't been able to get all the records $1.7 billion dollar from 8:04 foreign governments favor seekers state governments local governments during his presidency That's small potatoes compared to what's going on now Well and there is also this concern about the Trump family's uh involvement in in uh cryptocurrencies which which they're trying to get a lot of investment for while they're over there as well I mean is that part of this kind of Trump seems to be making a lot of money out of being the president oh yes I mean Donald is monetizing the presidency but on a grand scale this time uh he has refused to fill out his legally required office of government ethics financial disclosure So we don't know how much money is going into his pocket We only know the public announcements have been made So Middle East interests have put I believe it's $2 billion into uh cryptocurrencies Uh one country alone 300 million Uh there are people who have been uh uh 9:01 established as money launderers whom Trump is getting money from now And of course Trump has pardoned in the last hund and some days a whole bunch of serious criminals not just the the people who attacked police and tried to overthrow the government on January 6th but the guy who ran the Silk Road which was a way for both drug traffickers and terrorists to move money uh people who were major drug traffickers And of course Donald has spent his entire life gratuitously involved with criminals Uh in my book uh the making of Donald Trump there's a whole chapter about Donald's up to his eyeballs involvement with his business partner Joseph Wexelbomb uh who is a three-time convicted heavymate felon who confessed in writing I have his written handwritten confession to being one of the biggest drug traffickers in America And Donald did the most extraordinary favors for this man favors that make no sense whatsoever for anyone but especially as 10:02 Donald was at the time someone who owns casinos in New Jersey where you were prohibited from engaging in business with uh criminals So Donald this is to Donald u nothing new Um many American national security interest folks would regard the Middle East uh in large part as a group of businesses posing as countries Uh and uh Donald would simply go 'Oh look they love me They love me Look at the parades they're putting.' Oh no They had horses surrounding my limousine Uh this is just so wonderful And he wouldn't see anything beyond that Because flattery with Donald I learned from long personal experience If you flatter Donald it's amazing what you will get him to give up in a negotiation And one person who was also uh in Saudi Arabia yesterday who you mentioned hotels before there's been ideas that he's going to offer Trump some sort of tower or hotel development opportunity in Damascus He's the uh the new leader 11:02 of Syria Um what sort of relationship do you think Trump could end up forging with the new Syrian leader well it'll be entirely transactional That's what Donald's life is He is Donald is is an empty vessel inside Uh the reason he claims his buildings are bigger than they are his fortune is vastly bigger than at least was in the past um that he's you know the the the greatest lover of all time and other nonsense is because inside he is just a hollow vessel And this is a man who has never known love or contentment or joy Watch the few times he's tried to tell a joke on video It's like watching a hostage video He he can't do it He can't make fun of himself and he can't stand other people doing that All of that because he's such an insecure person inside And frankly Louie if you had grown up in the Trump household or I had we might well be just as messed up as Donald is It was a horrible horrible 12:00 place His mother was cold and distant And his father Fred was so utterly focused on what he called winning which meant get the money without getting arrested that a little boy named Johnny Messer who lived down the street rode past the Trump house on his bicycle as Fred Trump was coming home in his huge Cadillac Elderorado the biggest Cadillac you could buy and he dropped a quarter out of his pocket And he turned around his bicycle to go back to get it and Fred Trump went out on the public sidewalk in front of the house picked up the quarter held it up to the little eight-year-old or seven-year-old boy's face and went 'This is mine now.' I mean think about what kind of a monster does something like that And you can see why Donald Trump psychologically is such a hollow sad story I refer to his life as uh in reference to the comedy film Groundhog Day This is Groundhog Day the endless nightmare Well outside of Saudi Arabia while uh 13:01 Donald Trump's trip to the Middle East continues the US is also continuing talks with China We saw US stocks uh rebound essentially after those talks were agreed Um there was a lot of pressure to get those talks underway Is this in a way Trumpomics working or is it something of a climb down in the fact that they've had to take the tariffs off China well what did China give up uh you know Donald Donald often in negotiating stakes out some horrendous position that he knows he'll have to pull back from Historically he dealt with people who were financially in trouble whom he had paid someone to gather dirt on so that he could say you know imply that well I'm going to tell you know your wife about your girlfriend or something Um and that doesn't work as president Uh the Chinese are less and less dependent on the US They aren't even the largest holders of US foreign debt Um uh that's 14:00 Japan which has told Trump you know mess with us and we'll just dump our trillion dollars of US publicly traded debt Um China is increasing its markets elsewhere and um uh you'll see the Chinese who are very highly educated and think strategically in long term uh outwit Donald at every turn One of the things Donald has done is caused horrible harm to small businesses When he announced that he was reducing the tariffs to 30% That didn't apply to people who own a little business So if you own a a a a shop that sells souvenirs and things on Broadway or one of the New Jersey boardwalks or on the Hollywood Walk of Fame you're still subject to the 145% tariff on the goods you're buying And this very much reflects how Trump doesn't care about working people He doesn't care about small business owners most of whom are just working people who own their own job He is there to deal with people He imagines himself to be like very wealthy 15:01 people and he wants their approval didn't care about other people And and what do you make in all of this of the role of Scott Bessant the the the uh in Trump's inner circle he seems to have almost come forward as one of the kind of adults in the room He went to Ukraine and managed to get the deal signed there and he's now leading on on the China talks Do you think Donald's going to give him the space to get these talks done or is he going to want to be as involved in this again well most of the people in Trump's cabinet are utterly and completely incompetent and don't belong there And that's been well established by others Uh Bessant is someone who is at least on paper qualified Uh Donald will allow him to do things up to the point that it either embarrasses Donald outshines Donald uh or um becomes a problem And then of course Donald will push him onto his own sword The only person Donald allows to outshine him is Elon Musk which suggests 16:00 very strongly that there is an unseen financial relationship between Donald Trump and Elon Musk Remember Donald is on the hook for over $600 million in two civil cases And it may well be the reason he was able to get uh bonds to cover these costs which was surprising It doesn't cover all of them but it covers all of one and most of the or half of the other uh may well be that there's what's known as a back-to-back deal Uh the bond company officially will make the payment but Elon Musk has guaranteed the payment in the background I mean why else would Donald allow Elon Musk to outshine him again and again even in the Oval Office and Scott Bessant talks about securing these talks and he said that Trump's strategic uncertainty is something that's that's helped him along in doing that I mean is that is that uncertainty really what's brought China to the table here do you think i think China has agreed to talk because it's in their 17:00 interest to do so And they understand perfectly well that Donald is appallingly ignorant He has a degree in economics but I can tell you from the hundreds of hours I've spent talking with Donald he doesn't know anything about economics uh he believes in mercantalism although he doesn't even know what that is which was the economic theory before Adam Smith and the wealth of nations that if you have a piece of gold that means I don't have it and the only way for me to get wealthier is to get it from you and uh that's how he talks you know all these countries are ripping us off you know we're being ripped off everywhere because that's how he sees the world because that's how he spent his life cheating other people to get money now the the Chinese deeply educated very strategic thinkers Um one of the things I've been struck by in my trips to China is that you know American interstate highways are pretty good The Autobon is a lot better So are the so's the M1 and the other big freeways in Britain But you go on a Chinese highway whether it's in Beijing or Guanghou or clear in the 18:00 middle of the country in Changdu it's like wow this is how to build a road And they they think like the Catholic Church in terms of we're here forever Whereas American businesses think in 90-day terms Congress people in twoyear terms and Donald in terms of five minutes from now Well speaking of of of uncertainty uh there's a lot of uncertainty about what is going to happen with the talks over Ukraine in Turkey uh that Putin is actually going to turn up to those Um was it smart for Trump to swap out the threats and pressure for a ceasefire for these unconditional talks well understand Donald is not a strategic thinker Okay u if you asked him to u tell you what is the difference between Great Britain and the United Kingdom he couldn't tell you And he's the president I don't expect most people to know that but the president should be able to know that If you asked him what's the 19:00 difference between a Sunni and a Shia which is incredibly important in the Middle East he wouldn't have a clue and he would go off on a tangent So in Donald promised that upon his election in one day he would settle the war That clearly hasn't worked Vladimir Putin is very clear on the record and has been for more than two decades more than a quarter century actually that uh he wants to put back together the old Soviet empire And uh I have by marriage relatives who live behind what was the iron curtain And they you know what do they tell me oh if Donald isn't stopped in Ukraine it's just a matter of time before the tanks the Russian tanks come and we're back under the boot of the Kremlin So Putin is not going to give up unless he has to And Donald of course has been spouting Putin's propaganda Ukraine started the war being the best example of this The Ukrainian people are not going to surrender if if they can avoid it Their military has come up with 20:00 extraordinarily smart lowcost tactics that were going to be studied in war colleges all around the world a thousand years from now and Donald simply doesn't know what to do with Vladimir Putin who is not going to be subject to his flattery Do you think we've seen something of a shift though in the White House position on on Ukraine and Russia i mean even JD Vance has has admitted when in a trip to Europe last week that Russia is asking for too much you know Do you think that even people like if even people like Vance are changing their mind on this Ukraine might have a reason to feel more confident well very clearly Vladimir Putin's missteps here in thinking Donald was still going to be his lap dog have not worked Trump has begun to realize and JD Vance has been his spokesperson so he can have deniability that uh he's not getting what he wants And so this is going to be very difficult for Trump because if he can't deliver on this it 21:01 will cost him politically uh it will cost him both with obedient Republicans on Capitol Hill who I often refer to as the quizzling Republicans They are so willing to ignore the rule of law and to win over Donald's favor But it's also going to hurt him with some uh part of his base especially those who are either veterans or who have family ties to Ukraine or any of the other countries of the old Soviet Union Uh you know Poland Bellarus uh Muldova etc And so Trump's actually created quite a problem for himself here I think this will take a while to play out In the meantime Putin has so exhausted his military that he has acknowledged that they are using donkey carts to bring munitions and food to the front and and their defense of that was hilarious Militaries have always used donkey carts Yeah Well we quit using ar you know horse actual 22:00 horse cavalry too more than a hundred years ago Um he's in real trouble there and his economy is a complete disaster They've been reduced to barter to uh import among other things potatoes Russia has had to import potatoes That should tell you how much trouble his economy is in Uh now the Russian people are used to both dictators and and privation Uh so I don't think you're going to see a violent uprising against Putin U that might be a very good thing but I just don't expect to see that But uh Putin is the one right now who needs a peace He needs time to rebuild his military so that he is army of conquest can continue And they've announced they intend to have massive additional conscription of young men uh in Russia They of course have brought all sorts of prisoners out and their soldiers have proven so ineffective that in the 12 months ending in February 23:00 uh the Russians it was reported by the Russians have gained ground They gain one half of 1% of the territory of Ukraine at a cost of 400,000 dead soldiers That has to be the biggest butcher bill per square kilometer in the history of uh military action And and just finally David you know Trump has has even suggested he could attend these talks in Turkey You talk about this building to a bit of a crisis point perhaps for Trump How's it going to look if if Putin doesn't show up to these talks on Thursday oh I think that the Trump will look foolish and naive to everybody who's not a solid member of MAGA Uh Donald's in a very weak position You know the courts are routinely ruling against him He's had a few wins but overall he's losing in the courts His position that you know um uh anything he does to save the country is lawful is not sitting well with with the courts uh he's not doing well in his negotiations and his his 24:01 deal with the UK is a complete non-deal You know he brags about oh we're going to be able to have more Rolls-Royces Rolls-Royce sold less than 2,000 cars in the US last year in a market with 15 16 million sales a year Uh the UK Starmer came over um posed nicely for Donald with pictures and did nothing of any consequence And that's the same thing that's happened with the Chinese Uh the government in Mexico is being very firm because we need Mexican uh uh fruits and vegetables uh much more than uh they need us And Donald's complete ignorance is also on display in all of this And remember he said 'Oh Canada's not a significant trading partner It's our biggest trading partner.' Um so I I think that if Putin were to not show up and Donald were to show up that would be a real egg in his face And I assure you that if they know Putin is not on an airplane Donald's not going to be on an airplane They're not The people around Donald this time in this administration 25:01 are many of them are competent managers and they're zealots unlike the first time around when he had competent managers who loved the Constitution and reigned in Trump Well David K Johnston thank you very much for joining me today on the Trump Report Glad to be with you Louie

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